Indigenous leaders warn of missionaries turning Amazonian villages against vaccines

(This February 11 story corrects Purus to tributary of the Amazon, not to Xingú)

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Medical teams working to immunize Brazil’s remote indigenous villages against the coronavirus have met fierce resistance in some communities where evangelical missionaries are fueling fears about the vaccine, tribe leaders and advocates say.

On the São Francisco Reserve in Amazonas state, Jamamadi villagers sent health workers to pack their bow and arrow when they arrived by helicopter this month, said Claudemir da Silva, an Apurinã leader who represents indigenous communities on the Purus River, a tributary of the Amazon. .

“It doesn’t happen in all villages, just the villages with missionaries or evangelical chapels where pastors convince people not to get the vaccine, that they will turn into an alligator and other crazy ideas,” he said over the phone.

That has heightened fears that COVID-19 could roar through Brazil’s more than 800,000 indigenous peoples, whose communal way of life and often precarious healthcare make them a priority in the national immunization program.

Tribe leaders blame Brazilian far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and some of his ardent supporters in the evangelical community for fueling skepticism about coronavirus vaccines, despite a national death toll left only in the United States.

“Religious fundamentalists and evangelical missionaries are preaching against the vaccine,” said Dinamam Tuxá, a leader of APIB, Brazil’s largest indigenous organization.

The Association of Brazilian Anthropologists in a statement Tuesday denounced unspecified religious groups for spreading false conspiracy theories to “sabotage” the vaccination of indigenous peoples.

Many pastors at Brazil’s urban evangelical mega-churches are urging followers to get vaccinated, but say missionaries in remote areas have not gotten the message.

“Unfortunately, some pastors who lack wisdom are spreading misinformation to our native brethren,” said Pastor Mario Jorge Conceição of the Assembly of God Traditional Church in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state.

The government’s indigenous health agency Sesai told Reuters in a statement that it was in the process of raising awareness of the importance of immunization against the coronavirus.

Bolsonaro downplayed the seriousness of the virus and refused to take a vaccine himself. He has focused special spot on the most available photo of the country, taken by Sinovac Biotech from China, doubting its ‘origin’.

At an event in December, the president ridiculed vaccine maker Pfizer for saying the company had refused to accept liability for side effects in talks with his government.

‘If you take the vaccine and turn into an alligator, that’s your problem. If you become Superman or if women get beards, I have nothing to do with that, ”Bolsonaro said sarcastically.

Pfizer has said it has proposed standard contractual guarantees to the Brazilian government that other countries accepted before using the vaccine.

Access to social media, even in remote corners of Brazil, has sparked false rumors about the coronavirus vaccines.

For example, 56-year-old chief Fernando Katukina, of the Nôke Kôi people near the border with Peru, died of cardiac arrest due to diabetes and congestive heart failure on February 1. The message quickly spread on social media and radio that the COVID-19 vaccine he received in January had caused his death.

Butantan’s Biomedical Center, which manufactures and distributes the Sinovac vaccine, tried to convince the indigenous population that this was not the case.

“The social media reports that Fernando Katukina died after taking a COVID-19 vaccine are fake news,” Butantan wrote in a tweet.

COVID-19 has killed at least 957 indigenous people out of some 48,071 confirmed infections among half of Brazil’s 300 indigenous ethnic groups, according to APIB. The number could be much higher, as the health agency Sesai only monitors indigenous people who live on reservations.